


Phoenix Risen

by ElleCC



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AWA, Amelia What Amelia?, M/M, Post-Purgatory, Season 8, community:spnspringfling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-20
Updated: 2013-06-20
Packaged: 2017-12-15 14:58:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/850862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElleCC/pseuds/ElleCC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No matter what anyone thinks, Sam Winchester never gives up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Phoenix Risen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Marcia Elena (marciaelena)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marciaelena/gifts).



> Not that it's important, but note that I've factored in the years the show skipped after seasons 5 and 7, making it 2014 when Dean returns from Purgatory.

Sam's asleep when the first alarm goes off. He jerks awake, nearly spills a glass of water over the first edition Greek grimoire Don Stark finally dug up three months ago.

The alarm is high-pitched and grating, but it still takes Sam a couple moments to locate which map it's coming from.

His already pounding heart drums faster when he spots a blinking pin on the biggest map in the room—the one that takes up half the northern wall of Rufus' cabin.

The Rand McNally Classic Edition United States wall map.

He can see from here it's a _red_ pin.

He ignores Southeast Asia, Japan, and Australia as he strides past.

The United States. He's barely dared to believe any of the hundreds of pins scattered over the dozens of maps might light up, let alone consider the likelihood that if one ever did, it would be somewhere drivable.

Sam's palm slaps the wall, fingers curving around New England as he leans in. Red pin, central Maine. The small state only had room for six pins, so he can't be more specific than that. But he doesn't need to be right now.

He'll lose a few hours avoiding Canada, but he figures he can make it in about four days, alternating generous stretches of driving with modest periods of sleep. He'd try to forgo sleep, but he knows running the car off the road would be the last thing he ever did.

He pauses his planning to frown at the dormant blue pin next to the glowing red, taps it a couple times. It buzzes subtly against the pad of his finger—it's definitely active. It deserves more worry than the moment's worth he has to spare, but he's finding it hard to care too much; the _red_ pin is a _Dean_ pin, and it's drawing all of his attention.

The tiny red light is so bright, when Sam puts his fingertip on it, he can see a dull glow through his nail.

_Flash, flash, flash._

It's fascinating, knowing the light is pulsing in time with his brother's beating heart, and he allows himself a few seconds to pretend he's feeling the steady, heavy beat against his palm, through Dean's ribs.

Eyes closed, Sam rests his forehead above the map. They'd all said this wouldn't happen. A week, two months, half a year, a _year_ gone—there wasn't a chance he'd come back. He'd never survive.

The pin feels warm under his thumb.

No one in the world—not on Earth, not in Heaven or Hell or anywhere else—knows Dean Winchester like Sam does, knows that Dean Winchester can survive _anything_.

He pushes away from the wall. There's no time for this. He has to go. His brother won't stay still for long.

...

The drive eastward affords Sam too much time to think. About the nearly seventeen months that've passed since Dean destroyed Dick Roman. About all the time Dean's likely been in Purgatory. The lore is pretty spotty, and Sam's found exactly zero witnesses to pump for information about what it's like there.

The Alpha Vamp, when finally persuaded to talk, had shared his fourth, fifth, sixth-hand stories of days of no sun, no moon, nothing to discern one from the next. Of constant battle. Monster against monster, any species as likely to turn against itself as any other.

It's brought Sam some comfort believing Dean would have Cas at his back, that neither of them would be down there alone. But it was only a red pin that popped. Sitting in the Impala's passenger seat, braced by US map books, a stolen high school globe prickles like a porcupine with red and blue quills, so Sam will know immediately if Cas returns to existence on this plane. Assuming his absence doesn't indicate that Purgatory is intrinsically angel-unfriendly.

Sam doesn't want to think about what it could mean for Dean if he's spent all this time alone.

But whatever's happened, his brother—or at least his soul—is topside. Sam will deal with any consequences when he finds him.

...

Sam isn't sure what he was expecting, but it wasn't that the red pins of New England and then the mid-Atlantic would light up and fade out in steady southward progression. He's still too far out to have to change course, but after the first fifteen hours, he stops consulting the individual state maps to pinpoint Dean's exact location. There'll be time to get more specific when he's closer.

All of Sam's and Dean's phones (and a lone relic of John's) are lined up on the seat next to his thigh. When he's been on the road for more than a day and Virginia is flashing red, he checks them all to confirm they're working.

They are.

He can think of no good reason for his brother not to have contacted him, so he files it away with everything else he's not thinking about: what percentage of Purgatory's residents know the name Winchester; Dean's possible physical health; Dean's possible mental health; Castiel's existence (existential or otherwise); the emptiness of the seat beside him, of his entire world since last May.

Instead, he focuses on the rumble of the engine in front of him. He hums along to _Zeppelin II_ under his breath. He aims the Impala's nose toward North Carolina, and he doesn't think of anything at all.

...

Its sound dampened by an additional spell, a red pin is pulsing in Louisiana when Sam all but passes out at a truck stop on I-55. When he wakes up, harsh morning sun searing his eyelids, the pin hasn't moved.

He forces himself to move slowly, tells himself a few extra minutes won't make a difference. His body is humming; he feels as if his heart is pounding in tempo with the red pin, even as he makes his way into the diner. He uses the restroom, brushes his teeth at the sink. A smiling waitress hands him a to-go coffee and two apples. In the back seat, he finds his Louisiana state map and spreads it on the hood.

It's early still, and there's no one around when he murmurs a modified version of the scrying spell over the map. A pendulum swings gently from his palm.

Four times he repeats the incantation, the final time using a slight variation he was given by a _bokor_ earlier this year. The pendulum tip doesn't stray from Natchez, Mississippi. The town is so close to the Louisiana border, it didn't set off a new pin.

He carefully folds the map with northwest Louisiana and the western edge of Mississippi showing. After sticking a handful of activated pins around where the pendulum touched, he gets behind the wheel and drives.

...

In Jackson, Sam consults his phone and finds a Ramble On Inn on the outskirts of Natchez. Coincidence is one thing, divine sign quite another.

Ten miles east of the motel, the tone of the pin's alarm changes: Dean is on the move.

Sam's palms are slick against the steering wheel. He slides them down his thighs as he accelerates.

The phones are still silent. Unease set up residence in his stomach days ago, but he doesn't let it burrow any deeper. He's sure there's a reason. Like Dean's just waiting for the opportunity to lift a forgotten phone from a diner table. And it's 2014—pay phones aren't as common as they were even five or six years ago. Or maybe the motel didn't have power.

He guns the engine, gives the car's dash a surreptitious pat. It's been just the two of them for too long; they're ready to get back their third.

...

Sam doesn't remember the last time he felt so awake, so alert, but he's willing to wager the two tons of steel around him that Dean hears his baby before Sam spots his brother on the side of the road ahead, facing their direction.

Sam's assessing as soon as he can make out detail and is sure he isn't going to drive off the road. Plaid shirt, jeans, a backpack over his left shoulder. Dean's standing tall and straight—he looks _healthy_. _Big._ His right arm hangs casually at his side, but his thigh blocks his hand. If Sam knows anything, there's a weapon in it. Possibly Dean's favorite Taurus—it disappeared with him; maybe he was able to hold onto it.

Their eyes lock across the hood and five hundred days of separation. Somehow Sam gets the car pulled off the mostly quiet road without breaking eye contact, stops inches from Dean's knees.

The music fades out with a turn of the ignition. The ticking engine, the low rumble of a distant truck, they're the only noises Sam hears. They might be all the sound there is until the door creaks as he pushes it open and slides out.

Sam is very aware Dean doesn't look surprised to see him. He doesn't look much of anything. And though Sam was anticipating this, expecting to find Dean somewhere between the motel and the rest of the world, he finds himself short of both breath and words as he stands in front of his brother for the first time in nearly a year and a half. It's not the first (not even technically the second, in Sam's case) time they've gone so long without seeing each other, but this time is arguably different.

The other times Sam knew where Dean was, at least in theory: with Dad, hunting, Lisa's. He thinks he knew this time, too, but it's not until his whole chest constricts to the point of pain that he realizes he never truly believed he'd see Dean again.

"You're here." It's the most inane thing Sam's ever said.

Dean cocks an eyebrow; Sam's stomach swoops. "I could say the same thing."

Sam glances at the globe in the passenger seat. The flashing pin is visible. "I didn't know if...."

Dean follows Sam's gaze, but his eyes are quickly back on Sam. The other eyebrow goes up. Sam's never wanted his mouth on his brother's more in his life.

Something keeps Sam from moving closer. Maybe the tension he's reading in Dean's shoulders, the way his feet are carefully spread, his left knee bent so he can easily spring forward or back. Or maybe it's that his right hand is still hidden behind his thigh.

Sam falls back a step. "I...." He clears his throat and shakes his head. He wasn't thinking. Jerking his thumb toward the back of the car, he turns. "Let me get some holy water. I kept some borax, too." He takes two steps away, tries to remember where he stashed his silver knife.

"Sam."

Sam looks over his shoulder.

Dean's scans around them, eyes sharp. Then, taking a step toward Sam, he drops the backpack into the dirt. On top of it he sets what's clearly a weapon, some sort of large handcrafted, bone-handled blade. Sam's so engrossed by it, wondering whose bone it is, that he's startled when Dean grips the front of his shirt.

Dean's knuckles are painful against his chest. They lock eyes again. Sam isn't sure what to do. Is he allowed to touch? His hands hover inches from Dean's hips, wanting but hesitant. Palpable tension is rolling off his brother, and the last thing Sam wants to do is give Dean a reason to look even more hunted.

Dean tightens his grip. Sam feels his shirt stretch across his shoulder blades.

"Sammy."

Sam barely has time to register the rough timbre of his brother's voice before Dean's mouth is on his. It's been a long seventeen months of studiously not thinking about this, so Sam has no expectations, but the hard press of dry lips would probably have defied them, anyway.

It's over too fast, and then Dean's arms are around his back, and Sam's holding on to his brother like someone or something might try to take him away. The solidity of Dean is overwhelming: warm, firm, the dark comfort it's always been.

They finally step apart when a semi blasts past them, kicks up dust and dead leaves. Sam opens his mouth to ask Dean if he's okay, to apologize for being so fucking useless— _again—_ to maybe ask why Dean didn't call from Maine and what's in Louisiana and where was he headed, but Dean's hand on his chest stops all of it. He seems to be searching Sam's face; Sam has no idea for what.

Dean lightly tugs Sam's shirt before his hand drops. "How about we grab some grub? I passed a burger joint on the way out of town. There was _pie_ on the sign." His eyes are bright— _alive_.

Sam nods. "Yeah, sure. Let me just...." He turns to the Impala, waves a hand in the direction of the passenger side.

While Dean retrieves his backpack and stores it in the trunk, Sam clears out the front seat. He catches Dean watching as he carefully places the globe in the back. He takes a moment to cancel the spell on the red pins, but he leaves the blue ones silently humming away.

As he straightens up, he eyes Dean over the top of the car. "Cas?" he asks quietly.

Dean stares at him for a long moment before gazing off at the forest behind Sam. "Yeah, Cas didn't make it."

Sam modulates a sharp inhale, and when more information isn't forthcoming, he doesn't press. There'll be time for that. For the whole story, he hopes, though he knows he'll have to drag it out of Dean inch by bloody inch.

He doesn't deactivate the blue pins, just in case.

There doesn't seem to be a question of who'll sit where, and they slide into their long-ago assigned seats almost in sync.

Sam tries not to stare, but it's almost impossible to ignore the way Dean clearly loosens up the moment his hands wrap around the steering wheel. It's a good thing self-preservation forced him to stop being jealous of his brother's love for this car sometime around Dean's sixteenth birthday.

"Good job, Sammy." Dean smirks as he pats the dash. "No visible signs of douchery this time." His lips curve higher when he starts the car to a welcome by Robert Plant.

Sam grins. "Wait 'til you see the cabin."

Dean catches Sam still staring after he's swung the car around to head back toward Natchez. "What?"

Sam couldn't verbalize what he's feeling if he tried—this relief, this intense sense of _rightness_ , that things are how they're supposed to be. Or as close as they ever get for the Winchesters.

He knows the words would make Dean uncomfortable, anyway. So he shakes his head and smiles, and silently appreciates the sacred simplicity of having Dean right where he belongs: back at his side.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for SPN Spring Fling 2013 for marciaelena's pairing Sam/Dean and prompt "the sacred simplicity of you at my side."
> 
> Thanks to J for the beta and [hell's half acre](http://hells-half-acre.livejournal.com/) for her awesome SPN timelines. She calculates it's ~16-17 months from when Dean disappears (May 2013) to when he returns (Fall 2014, given that they visit Channing when a major college semester is in session), so that's what I went with.


End file.
